Some tips/tricks for KinTwom

[NANCYC71]

First I want to say I got this phone yesterday, and I just love it. I found some things customizable on there and didn't know if anyone else had taken notice to them themselves.

First, I know that the social networks were removed from the sliding option

But there is a work around for that. When you open your browser select the address bar, and click the <-- key on your keyboard. type in facebook.com and log in as you normally do. then when that page loads, click on the star in the address bar area on the right side.. it will give you the option to "pin to apps" this will give you instant access to your facebook.. or any site you wish. I do not know how many you can pin. But this is an option to add your social sites to your apps window. 

Secondly

I love the color schemes included, and although we arent able to customize the look, or make our own scheme colors.. you can however move the apps around. use 2 fingers and tap on apps screen, this will make the apps collapse.. you can then touch and hold to drag them anywhere on the screen.. put two fingers on it again and it will save and relock the apps. this is great for putting your most used apps at the top of the screen or anywhere you want them on that front screen

Zune is great, I am really enjoying it.. I have already figured out how to use the zune software with my phone, and move and delete pictures and music. If some of you don't understand how syncing works, when you plug your phone into your computer and your zune opens, you will notice your lock screen says "connected" to disconnect, unlcock screen.. or something like that.. if you unlock your phone screen, you will not be connected to the pc for syncing. I am thinking this is why people are complaining about not being able to sync their phones with the software or that the software isn't recognizing it.. if you do unlcock the screen, just unplug the phone and plug it back in, it will recognize it again. Keep it connected, and it will sync photos, videos, and music. back and forth. To delete music and videos off your phone.. in zune, click on "phone" in the very top navagation area then click on the media type.. you will then see what is on your phone.. right click on the item & select delete.

ALSO.. you DON"T need a ZUNE pass to enjoy the features of the zune.. there is a work around for that too.. in zune, go to marketplace, and select music or videos.. when you click on a song or music video, you can purchase it with microsoft points I purchased 400 points for $4.99 and was able to download one video and 2 songs I liked.. the zune pass is $14.99 a month for 10 songs.. thats rediculous... and expensive.

So,.Just purchase the credits seperately, your better off.. when you used all your points.. they have larger quanities you can purchase.. you will see these options when your in the check out area of purchasing them. you can choose how many points you want... AND the points you purchase can be shared across zune and xbox live as well for you gamers.

I LOVE the threaded texting.. I do not care about forwarding messages to people.. I personally hate getting those kind of texts myself... I dont care that you cant delete one message at a time.. I personally enjoy the simplicity of deleting the entire conversation at once..having this phone after having regular phones. this thing is the easiest, simplist phone I ever got... And it is great. 

When I was activating the phone I had to have tech support help me, (because of area I live in) so they had me dial that ##number to go deeper into the phones settings.. I noticed that windows items are still in there... like the cloud server information.. I am thinking that these phones were reintroduced for a reason. There may just be updates and options down the road, why else would they keep all of microsofts product in the phone? It's just a thought. But anyways.. I have read so many people complaining about the volume keys not locking when the phone locks.. That doesn't bother me at all.. I never use the alarm.. don't care about it. I never make calls with my phone because I have poor reception where I live.., THIS IS THE BEST TEXTING PHONE!!!!!!!!!!!! at verizon... the other feature phones do NOT have threaded texting at all.. not even the cosmos touch do not believe what reviewers are saying on youtube about the LG cosmos touch.. they obviously don't know what "threaded" texting actually means. there is no threaded texting on that phone... that is why i sent it back and got the kinTwo instead..... with this phone.. you click on the bubble that pops up from a message you recieved, and wa-la conversation screen appears.. no need to go through 5 button clicks to send anything like those other feature phones(blah). you click on messages, click on the conversation and start typing thats all there is to that. awesome. LOVE IT!!!!!

It is VERY true that you DON'T need a data plan to have this phone.. but it would make sense to get the cheapest data plan.. that way if your not near a wifi connection you can still use the browser.. but it isn't a must have. I have nationwide messaging, which includes unlimited data.. so I am good to go either way. There are settings, you can turn off data roaming, turn off wifi and all that.. so you can choose how you want to utilize the options of your KinTwom. The browser has pinch zooming like a "droid" and it is pretty fluid too. This phone feels like a smartphone when I use it. I just LOVE it!

I read all the specs, and all the reviews of this phone before I ordered it, so I already knew what was capable and what wasn't and I have no complaints about it on those things. I think I know why the volume doesn't lock when you lock the device, because it is a music player.. and if someone were to use it as a music player, it would be more of a hassle to turn down the music in situations if it was locked.. BUT.. there however should be a settings option in the sound menu to lock it on phone lock.. that way people who do not use it for music, can choose to lock the sound. just a thought for verizon.

I hear people talking about there wont be any updates or anything like that to these phones simply because microsoft backed out of them.. people are not thinking clearly.. these aren't the original kin phones, they arent depleating their left over inventory.. these are reintroduced as feature phones with smartphone features removed, . and I highly doubt verizon would have people use phones that would forever be out of date.. or not updated. I read in this forum that someone did get some sort of modem update on their device... so updates are probable from verizon. What I would like to see, is the ability to change the app icons using photos downloaded or taken via camera..the same as we can for our favorite contacts. that would be a sweet thing to be able to do. just a suggestion.

My only issue is if I put my camera setting to night mode the camera will be slower for some weird reason, not sure why that is.. so I will just leave it on auto.  But i love this phone.. it is the best feature phone I have ever owned in my life. Before you buy the phone.. get familuar with the specs and functions of it.. don't go blindly purchasing this phone thinking it's an android or something like that.. this is NOT  smartphone... but it is pretty damned close to it with some of the features it has and the look of it.

Hope this post helps some people! 😃

If anyone has any other tricks or tips that havent been mentioned yet.. feel free to post them here. 

[SydneyK]

Glad to hear you like it so much.

I have a useful trick: In the phone menus, where it shows your voicemail number, *86, change that to *86,,XXXX# (the four X's will be your four-digit code to access your voice mail). The two commas add just enough of a pause that, when you go into your voice mail, you don't have to enter your code each time ... it'll automatically dial you in.

[NANCYC71]

Thanks for the tip.. although because of where i live my phone is bouncing off cellular one's tower.. so using the *codes for me is useless.. lol 😃

[Nostalgic]

also if you press the camera button and the home button at the same time you take a picture of your screen

[aaronsaund]

Zune Pass is not for getting 10 songs a month. It's a subscription service. You get unlimited DRMed music to download and listen to on your mobile device and computer. They give you 10 songs to OWN as a bonus. You actually get access to the millions of songs in their catolog. Zune Pass is actually a deal compared to every other subscription service. 10 songs a month (99 cent songs) would already cost 10/month so technically the access to the other songs is onl 4.99/month.

Just thought I'd clear that up. Thanks for your post, it was helpful.

[jtheo121]

Thanks Nancy.  Nice letter, and it Helped!!!  To fellow users, if you have a Mac, please see my post regarding syncing.

[goofy173]

I know this stuff is 3 months old but I just got mine and hadn't yet used the pin function so now I know.

I hope you are right Nancy that it will have updates, but I really doubt it. This is the norm for Microsoft when stuff they put out bombs. Dish Network had a DVR receiver many years ago that had Microsoft software installed and it was buggy to say the least. They updated it a few times but then abandon it. For a few years Microsoft wouldn't release the code to Dish Network to allow DN to fix the bugs. It was a real "Hate Microsoft" time for those users. DN had to put out their own coded DVR receivers and let the Microsoft ones die.

I think VZ made a deal with MS and removed the stuff MS wasn't supporting. Then VZ put them out without needing a data package to unload them.